Tuesday thoughts and links, starting with the upcoming Amish Mafia (reality? fiction?) show: “Amish mafiosi” keeping code of silence? The much-discussed “Amish Mafia” premieres tomorrow, but the “sneak peek” is on tonight.  Some reporters have been asking Amish experts what they think of the idea of an Amish mafia. Donald Kraybill calls it fiction, and David Weaver-Zercher says he first thought it was a parody sketch…
Michigan Mary attended the Horse Progress Days event this past weekend, held at Clare, Michigan (home to a small Amish community). Horse Progress Days bills itself as “the showcase event for newly manufactured and modified horse drawn equipment”. This annual event started in 1994 in Lancaster County and rotates among locations including Pennsylvania, Michigan, southern and northern Indiana, and Illinois (here’s more on the history of…
Michigan’s Branch County is found on the southern end of the state, on the Indiana border. Â The two counties to its south are Lagrange County and Steuben County, Indiana, both with an Amish presence, particularly heavy in Lagrange. Head west from Branch County and you’ll reach the Amish of St. Joseph County, Michigan’s largest settlement. Â Hillsdale County to the east has an Amish population, as…
Michigan currently occupies sixth place when it comes to the size of their Amish population. Â The state is home to nearly 12,000 Amish in 3 dozen communities (see Young Center 2011 Amish statistics). Over one-tenth of the Michigan Amish population is found in St. Joseph County, in a settlement located near the town of Centreville. Â This group consisted of 11 Amish church districts as of…
This summer I picked up a copy of the  2010 Michigan Amish Directory, which lists most of the Amish settlements in the state.  Amish directories vary; some can be little more than an address listing, while others include historical background, maps, and more. The Michigan guide, like a few other directories, contains a chart listing the occupations of household heads.  While the survey is not…
Branch County, Michigan is home to 5 Amish settlements. Â I visited two of them a couple of days ago. Â Some photos: On a little red potato treasure hunt. My favorite kind of sky. Tetherball! Can you say sunny. Healthy stuff. While farming is still important to many Amish, others have started small enterprises. Michigan Amish businesses include small stores, carpentry crews, and woodworking shops (read…
As Ira discussed yesterday, Amish work a lot. Â Selling books in Amish communities, I’d often come across Amish in the middle of some task. Â If you show up at an Amish home and want to talk to the residents, odds are you are going to be interrupting some chore or job. Â I quickly learned which tasks I could politely interrupt and which ones were best…
What a neat video today. Â Auctioneers have always fascinated me–their cadence of speech, command of a crowd, how they inject otherwise mundane transactions with excitement and immediacy. And Amish auctioneers doubly so. Â You’ll find no professional actors, musicians, or entertainers among Amish. Â But I’ve often thought that auctioneers are the closest to “show business” the Amish get. Getting up on stage, mic-ed up, all eyes…
You might remember a photo a couple weeks back, of an Amish kitchen that some people found a bit on the fancy side? Today we have a shot of another room in the same Michigan home: This place looks like it has some nice spots for taking a nap. Â Just as long as those clocks aren’t too noisy. Â A close-up: Another Amish wall decoration: Special…
I think you’ll notice quite a contrast between this photo and last week’s Swiss Amish home photos. Â This was taken in a Michigan Amish home by Karen Johnson-Weiner: Comparing these photos you can really see the diverse material standards of different Amish groups. I’ve zoomed in on a couple parts to make things more visible: Notice anything familiar? Also if you missed it, inside a…